Today's Stichomancy for Abraham Lincoln

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Moral Emblems by Robert Louis Stevenson:

But now the work is ripe - Observe the costly paper, Remark the perfect type!

MORAL EMBLEMS I

Poem: I

See how the children in the print Bound on the book to see what's in 't! O, like these pretty babes, may you Seize and APPLY this volume too! And while your eye upon the cuts With harmless ardour opes and shuts,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare:

Here is my hand, and here I firmly vow Never to woo her more, but do forswear her, As one unworthy all the former favours That I have fondly flatter'd her withal.

TRANIO. And here I take the like unfeigned oath, Never to marry with her though she would entreat; Fie on her! See how beastly she doth court him!

HORTENSIO. Would all the world but he had quite forsworn! For me, that I may surely keep mine oath,

The Taming of the Shrew

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll:

Brimming over with quivering curds!

"It is this, it is this--" "We have had that before!" The Bellman indignantly said. And the Baker replied "Let me say it once more. It is this, it is this that I dread!

"I engage with the Snark--every night after dark-- In a dreamy delirious fight: I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes, And I use it for striking a light:

"But if ever I meet with a Boojum, that day, In a moment (of this I am sure),

The Hunting of the Snark

The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen:

perhaps, or wanton cruelty--was yet to be unravelled.

In revolving these matters, while she undressed, it suddenly struck her as not unlikely that she might that morning have passed near the very spot of this unfortunate woman's confinement--might have been within a few paces of the cell in which she languished out her days; for what part of the abbey could be more fitted for the purpose than that which yet bore the traces of monastic division? In the high-arched passage, paved with stone, which already she had trodden with peculiar awe, she well remembered the doors of which the general

Northanger Abbey